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I am not sure exactly what my question is as I get seriously turned around by autoconf/automake/libtoolize etc. Several of us are trying to autoconferize mbsystem. I've thrown a repo up of the work to date here:

https://bitbucket.org/schwehr/mbsystem

I'm trying to improve the netcdf setup to use nc-config, but am uncertain how to do this correctly. I am working on configure.in. It seems unable to find a header with AC_CHECK_HEADER("netcdfcpp.h") after INCLUDES="$INCLUDES ``$nc_config --cflags``" (pardon the incorrect back ticks) as taken from the gdl netcdf check. What is the correct way to update the path from nc-config --cflags?

http://gnudatalanguage.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/gnudatalanguage/gdl/configure.in?revision=1.121

I then tried to use AX_PATH_GENERIC and get stuck on this error with m4_include([m4/ax_path_generic.m4])

Running autoconf ...
configure.in:29: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_SUBST
      If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
     See the Autoconf documentation.
configure:12992: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_RESULT

Any help in getting better at creating a netcdf check that actually will work with funky non-standard install locations via nc-config and figuring out how to properly put a macro in the m4 directory would be a huge help.

A pointer to a package doing this really cleanly would be a super help. I've been looking at the netcdf, gdal, geos and gdl sources for examples. And things like the octopus netcdf check do not use nc-config... http://www.tddft.org/trac/octopus/browser/trunk/m4/netcdf.m4

The current setup with fink for netcdf 4.x:

nc-config --cflags --libs
-I/sw/opt/netcdf7/include -I/sw/include
-L/sw/opt/netcdf7/lib -lnetcdf

Thanks!

Kurt Schwehr
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2 Answers2

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See Makefile.am: How to use curl-config and xml2-config in configure.ac? and substitute xml2/curl by netcdf.

Just use

PKG_CHECK_MODULES([libnetcdf], [netcdf])

in configure.ac, and then, in Makefile.am:

AM_CPPFLAGS = ${libnetcdf_CFLAGS}
bin_PROGRAMS = foo
foo_SOURCES = ...
foo_LDADD = ${libnetcdf_LIBS}
Community
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jørgensen
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The "correct" way to use a third party m4 macro is to use aclocal (usually via automake) to generate aclocal.m4. If you are using automake, just add

ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4

to Makefile.am and put

AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])

in configure.ac (after renaming configure.in).

If you are not using automake, add '-I m4' when you invoke aclocal. If you are not using aclocal, then you'll have to append the definition of the macro to the end of aclocal.m4 (and be careful to never run aclocal, as that will overwrite the file.)

There is no good example of a clean way to use conf scripts to do a build because using such scripts is an inherently flawed approach. A slightly cleaner approach is to stop using custom scripts and use pkg-config via PKG_CHECK_MODULES, but the cleanest way to do this is to educate your users. If the user wants to install the library in funky non-standard locations then they need to be educated enough to set LDFLAGS and CPPFLAGS appropriately.

William Pursell
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